Forever Chemicals: US dairy farmer’s ‘nightmare’

By CJ Gunther Arundel, US, Sep 12 (EFE).- Fred Stone’s family ran a successful dairy farm in the US state of Maine for over a century. But he has been put out of business because of a decades-old state-sponsored fertilizer program that contaminated his land with harmful “forever chemicals”.

“The stuff is in my soil,” Stone tells EFE’s partner, EPA Images, at the Stoneridge Dairy Farm in Arundel. “It is in the groundwater that I give my cows, and in the hay that I cut and feed my cows.

It is in every part of them – milk, muscle, fat. And it doesn’t go away. Ever.”Synthetic chemicals called PFAS (Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) are widely used in a range of consumer goods, including waterproof fabrics, electronics, cosmetics, and kitchen pots and pans.

But these “Forever Chemicals” – so-called because they barely degrade in nature – have been found in soil, oceans and water across the US and worldwide, and have been linked to a number of serious health conditions.

These potentially toxic chemicals have also been found in the milk that Stone’s farm produces.

The cows on this dairy farm in Arundel, in the northeastern state of Maine, had been providing milk to the Oakhurst Dairy, one of the largest distributors in the US, for decades.

But that all changed in November 2016, when Stone received an alarming phone call from Oakhurst, informing him of excessive levels of PFAS chemicals in his milk.

DECADES-OLD NIGHTMARE

While Stone only became aware of the problem when Oakhurst alerted him to it, the “nightmare”, as he calls it, had been unfolding for decades. In the 1980s, the state of Maine offered farmers sludge – a byproduct of wastewater treatment, – for use on farms in slurry pits, or in manure storage ponds, which is eventually spread on the fields for fertilization.

Assuming the sludge was safe, farmers around Maine were eager to capitalize on this offer of free fertilizer. Not only did Stone take this up, he says the Maine Department of Environmental Protection even hired him to deliver and distribute the material to other farmers in his area from 1983 until 2004 as part of the state-sponsored program.But years later in 2016, the sludge was found to be the source of PFAS, despite the initial assurances that it was safe to use.

The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control say PFAS chemicals are “harmful to human health”.

Stone says that Oakhurst’s testing in 2016 found that milk from Stoneridge had 1,410 parts per trillion (ppt), nearly seven times higher than the 210 ppt that were allowed at the time.

After the call from Oakhurst, Stone slaughtered 125 of his cows, hoping that a new herd would help solve the problem, but within a few months, he says, the new cows were also producing milk with excessive PFAS levels.

“I couldn’t have children drinking that milk, I had to find a way to make things right, and still be a dairy farm,” says Stone.

HEALTH IMPLICATIONS

In April 2024, the EPA said that drinking water providers must reduce the levels of PFAS in water to 4 ppt, far below the previous limit of 70 ppt.And while the EPA has started measuring PFAS levels in the soil and water when it comes to food products such as milk, US federal authorities have yet to impose a limit or provide guidelines.

That is despite PFAS contaminating over 97% of American citizens, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Several medical studies have found that exposure to PFAS contamination has been linked to a range of conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Fred Stone’s health has also been severely affected, with his blood levels at 111 ppt. “I have full blown Parkinson’s. I fall down a lot and stuff and I take the meds for that. There’s no (history of) Parkinson’s in my family whatsoever. My wife (also) has issues with different things,” he says.

Stone also suffers from edema affecting his legs, which he believes is a result of PFAS exposure. Twice a week, a visiting nurse provides him with medication to cope with the pain, reduce the swelling and avoid infections in the open wounds.

WHAT IS BEING DONE

Stone currently uses hay from Canada to feed his much smaller herd of cows, and has a large granular-activated carbon water filtration system.

These steps have lowered PFAS levels in his cows by approximately 50%, but the harmful chemicals are still detectable. In 2023, Maine congressman Wayne Parry became aware of the problems at Stone’s and other farms contaminated with PFAS.

He introduced a bill requiring the State of Maine to reimburse farms and farmers affected by the contaminated state-provided sludge.

“I wanted to make sure people like Fred (…) were able to get some compensation after the State told them that the stuff he was spreading on his farm was fine and that there were no issues with it,” Parry tells EPA Images.

Unable to produce and sell milk since 2016, Stone’s fell into debt of over 500,000 dollars. Those losses were never recovered.

“There needs to be compensation for their loss, and to take care of those first farms that were hit immediately,” Parry adds.

The state has since passed laws to compensate affected farmers – by requiring the state to either buy the farm or repurpose the facilities, such as by installing solar panels.

But Stone and Parry say progress has been slow.And while he has now started to receive some assistance from the state to cover the cost of testing, for years the Stone family were forced to shoulder the steep medical costs themselves.

Having been forced out of the dairy business, Stone has adapted by installing solar panels so that the family can remain on the land they’ve called home for over 100 years.

“Now the land I grew up on is going to be covered with solar panels and not growing feed for my animals. (My wife) Laura and I have lost eight years of our lives because we thought that coming forward and refusing to sell contaminated milk or meats was the (right) thing to do,” he says.

“I wish I could be happy about it, but I am not. Shame on the State for putting us in this position.”

cj-ks